Is content still king?

The reign of content as the king in the world of digital marketing has been of an unusual length. But has its tenure come to an end? We raise this question because we are seeing a dramatic decrease in organic reach from business pages on Facebook and Instagram compared to two years ago.

Brands on social media will have noticed that the ‘create great content to reach and convert your fans into customers’ formula is no longer working without budget. Creating memorable and ultimately shareable content continues to be king, but a powerful queen has emerged: dissemination.

As a rule of thumb, you don’t want your ads to be shown more than four times to the same person in a week. It is also worth considering to build an audience based on their responsiveness to your content.

Reach

Facebook offers an abundance of options to build your target audience. Keep in mind that you want to build your target audience based on people who are most likely to respond to your offer. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to target those who are most likely to engage with your ad (unless your goal is ad engagement).

Your target groups might use social media quite passively. Nonetheless, they are most likely to buy your products or services. The extensive audience building tools on social media allow you experiment and compare. Once you found your niche audience you can start tailoring your offers to their individual profile.

Let’s say you’re a pizza company and your customers consist of young adults, students and families. You have found out that these three are your three most valuable target groups. Chances are that students won’t respond to promotions offering discounted meal deals for three as much as families hoping for an affordable family lunch. Creating an ad set recognising the needs of these individual target audiences allows you to reach the right audience with the best impact.

Content

The better you understand your customer’s sense of humour, their interests and problems, the more relevant your content will be. A customer who thinks ‘this brand just gets me’ should be the ultimate goal to keep in mind during this self-exploratory exercise.

To conclude, content deserves a seat in the front seat when it comes to advertising strategy. However, it is pretty much worthless if it is not seen by the right eyeballs. Just like a king struggles to rule over a kingdom he does not understand, understanding reach and frequency will give your content the authority it deserves.